Care provider applies again for hospital in Ashburn

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Hospital Corp. of America Virginia filed a new application Thursday to build a hospital in Ashburn, hoping to win approval from the new Board of Supervisors voters elected in November.

The company sued the county for permission to build the 164-bed Broadlands Regional Medical Center along the Dulles Greenway in 2005 after supervisors rejected its previous proposals. The company yanked the lawsuit last month and vowed to try again.

“[The hospital] will improve the quality of life for all Loudoun residents who lack convenient and practical access to a full-service hospital,” said Margaret Lewis, president of the company’s division covering Virginia.

The company is betting that its original offer was worthy of approval but faced an unreceptive audience from the former Board of Supervisors: “The new BRMC applications are unchanged in any material way from those first submitted to the county in 2005,” the company said.

Four Republican supervisors who opposed the hospital’s application lost in the November elections, and company officials are hoping new supervisors will approve their bid.

Critics, including Republican Supervisors Lori Waters and Eugene Delgaudio, say the location off the Dulles Greenway in Ashburn is a poor site for the hospital and is too close to the existing Inova Lansdowne Hospital, about 5 miles away.

However, County Chairman Scott York, an independent, has hailed the hospital as a potential economic development engine, bringing hundreds of high-paying jobs to the area.

The hospital company, which operates another hospital in nearby Reston, contends the county, which has more than tripled in population since 1990, sorely needs another hospital to serve a population soon expected to eclipse 300,000. The county has 0.62 hospital beds per 1,000 residents, well below the regional average of 1.33 beds per 1,000 residents, according to the company’s figures.

dgenz@dcexaminer.com